Stimulus-tracking Recovery.gov site goes live

Recovery.gov launches to track stimulus spending—but will it be a triumph of …

President Obama signed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 today, and while much of the $789 billion in spending provided over the legislation's 1,100 pages will take years to make its way into the economy, one provision of the bill is already being enacted: The White House has launched Recovery.gov, a site designed to track the myriad expenditures authorized under the law for transportation infrastructure, broadband deployment, science, education, and targeted tax relief.

There are already a slew of unofficial online efforts to monitor both the stimulus legislation and its progeny—those "shovel-ready" projects to be funded by grants and loans from an alphabet soup of federal agencies. But the official site is an attempt to realize Obama's frequent promise to use technology to make government more transparent.

"The size and scale of this plan demand unprecedented efforts to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending," Obama says in an introductory video posted at the site. "Instead of politicians doling out money behind closed doors, the important decisions about where taxpayer dollars are invested will be yours to scrutinize."

Thus far, of course, there's not much to watch—aside from the aforementioned video—since funds have yet to be assigned to specific projects. A chart on the front page breaks down the broad spending categories into which federal dollars will flow, while a timeline gives the dates on which visitors can expect more information: initial funding reports from agencies start coming in on March 3, with detailed breakdowns due on May 15, and information on competitive grants and contracts showing up starting on the 20th. The site's FAQ promises that this data will eventually be available in an exportable format, such as XML, enabling third-party sites to produce their own "mashups and gadgets." (This may mark the first use of the word "mashup" on a White House site.)

For the moment, aside from the general spending breakdown, there's the requisite "share your story" page where visitors can submit comments on how stimulus-funded projects are working (or failing to). There's also a state-by-state map showing impressively precise estimates of the jobs stimulus spending is projected to create or save. (Previous estimates from the White House's Council of Economic Advisors were rather more cautious, giving projected job-creation ranges that spanned a million jobs or more per year.)

The real test of the site's efficacy, of course, will come as actual data about funded projects begins to pour in. And while it's easy to celebrate an effort to provide greater political transparency, it may also be worth recalling the fate of the congressional franking privilege: meant to enable legislators to keep their constituents informed about matters of public concern, it's become primarily a means of mailing out free, self-congratulatory press releases. Given that the current incarnation of the site is arguably an ad for an "unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century," the best recipe for accountability may be to ignore the site itself and wait to see what third-party analysts make of that exportable data.

I don't really get the whole 'lack of transparency' thing as a non-American. I mean, isn't what the money is going to be spent on in the bill itself, which is obviously publicly accessible?? Hell the Wall Street Journal has posted an itemized list using that source (i'm assuming).

Or is it just that Americans are too lazy, and need to pay to have a flashy 2.0 website to tell them something that is already out there??

Originally posted by jahpraiseherb:I don't really get the whole 'lack of transparency' thing as a non-American. I mean, isn't what the money is going to be spent on in the bill itself, which is obviously publicly accessible?? Hell the Wall Street Journal has posted an itemized list using that source (i'm assuming).

Or is it just that Americans are too lazy, and need to pay to have a flashy 2.0 website to tell them something that is already out there??

The legislation itself allocates funds for broad categories of spending to be disbursed by various federal agencies. The specific projects that will receive funds have not yet been determined -- the relevant agencies (e.g. NTIA for broadband spending) will decide that through an application/bid process. The specific projects are what Recovery.gov will track.

It is an absolute waste of time. Tracking a waste of time and money online is a waste of time and money. The worthless stimulus spending bill will only make things worse. The government has no wealth, the money for this bill can only come from three source: 1. Taxes - which takes money from the consumer and businesses and hurts the economy, 2. Borrowing - which robs capital from the private sector for investment and hurts the economy or 3. Printing - which causes massive inflation, devaling the purchasing power of the dollar. Thus it is economically impossible for this to do anything but make things worse. No government in history has ever spent their way out of a recession, it did not work in the '30s, it did not work when the Japanese tried it over and over in the '90s and it did not work when Bush tried it last year. The only thing that can help the economy is to reduce the size of government, reduce government spending, cut taxes and remove economically crippling regulations.

Originally posted by Mastertech:t is an absolute waste of time. Tracking a waste of time and money online is a waste of time and money. The worthless stimulus spending bill will only make things worse. The government has no wealth, the money for this bill can only come from three source: 1. Taxes - which takes money from the consumer and businesses and hurts the economy, 2. Borrowing - which robs capital from the private sector for investment and hurts the economy or 3. Printing - which causes massive inflation, devaling the purchasing power of the dollar. Thus it is economically impossible for this to do anything but make things worse. No government in history has ever spent their way out of a recession, it did not work in the '30s, it did not work when the Japanese tried it over and over in the '90s and it did not work when Bush tried it last year. The only thing that can help the economy is to reduce the size of government, reduce government spending, cut taxes and remove economically crippling regulations.

What absolute bullshit... It's obvious you've never taken a course in economics.

What do you think finally got the US out of the Great Depression? That's right, the huge amount of money the US government had to spend during World War II.

A transparency website is just going to make me mad because I'd rather just forget the government was ever idiotic enough to pass such a huge pork package. We will constantly be reminded of why it is in this country's best interest that taxpayers everywhere pay for a high speed rail to deliver people from LA to Vegas so they can gamble. If we are investing in our future, shouldn't we be building things to sell to other countries to decrease the ever increasing trade deficit? That wouldn't be in Harry Reid's interest though.

I understand the congress failed to include an amortization schedule for paying back the increase in debt. What a wonderful role model for homeowners everywhere to follow.

I've studied economics extensively, you have obviously not. Taking a course in keynesian economics is meaningless BTW. It was not WWII that got the U.S. out of the depression but capitalism.

Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War (PDF) (Robert Higgs, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Economics)

So you quote writings by one of the thousands of economics academics in the world to buttress your point? I could point you to one of the hundreds of articles this year's Nobel Price winner Paul Krugman (a Keynesian!!) has written on the subject; but that'd be just as lazy. Saying capitalism got us out of the Great Depression is absolutely meaningless.

What absolute bullshit... It's obvious you've never taken a course in economics.

What do you think finally got the US out of the Great Depression? That's right, the huge amount of money the US government had to spend during World War II.

I would suspect the poster has taken a course in economics. The US was an entirely different economic animal during and after WWII. The upper echelon of the US has since decided to sell out a majority of its manufacturing so that consumers may buy goods for a cheaper price- even artificially low prices if you believe the economists who criticize the chinese currency situation. Unfortunately we can't export lawyers, because that is where the expertise in the US lies today- along with other information expertise fields, most of which can be done anywhere (e.g. computer science in India). The current economic situation is very, very different than any we have seen before. Coupled with the tremendously troublesome trade deficit brought about by off-shoring is the huge personal debt situation that didn't exist 50 years ago. People used to save money to buy things, that rarely happens anymore. These days the government is more worried about the financial sector than the people. What are these financial institutions going to be worth when all they have to invest in is themselves because there are no longer any real companies in the US producing real goods to export? The economy in the coming decade(s) will be very different than anything we have seen before, and if we are to address global warming, we will have to reverse the global trade that is responsible for a large percentage of the increase.

If you have an economist you trust, ask him/her when the US will pay off its debt. The answer is a date, if it comes in the form of hemming-and-hawing or hand-waving then the economist is dodging the question. I have yet to see any economist who will stake his/her reputation on the day that my tax dollars will no longer go to paying interest to the chinese.

What happened? The real estate market burst. Too many houses built and too many on the market. Take 10 billion dollars and hire a bunch of unemployed monkeys to bulldoze two million houses.

Home values stop dropping. The remaining inventory of houses clears up. Maybe even home values start going up a bit. Maybe even new houses will have to be built to meet demand. Foreclosures will slow down. Banks will stop freaking out about mortgage debt. Give the banks a fat tax credit to amortize the bulldozed houses over 30 years. Everything else becomes gravy.

The quick fix would simply be to give every tax payer a check for $20k to pay on/off their high interest bills. Fuck the trickle down theory and all the bullshit that went with it - since it never worked except for the rich and vested interest types. How about a trickle up program that focuses on the real economy - family budgets...

The quick fix would simply be to give every tax payer a check for $20k to pay on/off their high interest bills. Fuck the trickle down theory and all the bullshit that went with it - since it never worked except for the rich and vested interest types. How about a trickle up program that focuses on the real economy - family budgets...

Cutting taxes to help people pay their bills is a legitimate solution, giving people checks for money they never paid in taxes is welfare. It is not called trickle down theory but Supply-side economics this not the same as Classical or Austrian economics - either of which I prefer. I don't believe trickle-up poverty is going to solve anything as welfare has been an utter failure. You are responsible for your high interest bills not the government or the tax payer that would be subsidizing paying off your lack of personal responsibility.

The quick fix would simply be to give every tax payer a check for $20k to pay on/off their high interest bills. Fuck the trickle down theory and all the bullshit that went with it - since it never worked except for the rich and vested interest types. How about a trickle up program that focuses on the real economy - family budgets...

Cutting taxes to help people pay their bills is a legitimate solution, giving people checks for money they never paid in taxes is welfare. It is not called trickle down theory but Supply-side economics this not the same as Classical or Austrian economics - either of which I prefer. I don't believe trickle-up poverty is going to solve anything as welfare has been an utter failure. You are responsible for your high interest bills not the government or the tax payer that would be subsidizing paying off your lack of personal responsibility.

What you are scared that the truth will come out and even MORE Americans realize the "stimulus" is a total waste and it only lines the pockets of the contributors of the Democratic Party, the same people responsible for this mess?

The "site" is just to further obfuscate the truth and fool the morons that voted O in

Obama is only continuing Bush's plan to purposefully and justifiably bankrupt the US. The US can't repay its debts to the world. So it's simply arming itself to the teeth and waiting for C-Day (collection-day).

Of course, if I was an American and if I was on a plane, it would probably be going down. That's how the biggest mafia in world works.

What you are scared that the truth will come out and even MORE Americans realize the "stimulus" is a total waste and it only lines the pockets of the contributors of the Democratic Party, the same people responsible for this mess?

You misspelled "Republican Party".At the end of the Clinton years we had balanced budgets, millions of new jobs, we were on our way to reducing the deficit because we had a surplus, and then came W and his party, whose only mantras were 'tax cuts' and 'reduced regulation'. We now see the result of unwarranted tax cuts, and reduced regulation. The free spending was A-OK when they were in power, but now that they're not it's all about fiscal responsibility! What a bunch of hypocrites. But don't worry, I'm sure the public will get complacent once things get better again, and then they will vote in another Republican, who will do what Republicans do best - shift the burden of government to the poorer classes, get out of the way of corporate greed, and bring on another collapse so they can hand it back over to the Democrats to fix it again.

You misspelled "Republican Party".At the end of the Clinton years we had balanced budgets, millions of new jobs, we were on our way to reducing the deficit because we had a surplus, and then came W and his party, whose only mantras were 'tax cuts' and 'reduced regulation'. We now see the result of unwarranted tax cuts, and reduced regulation. The free spending was A-OK when they were in power, but now that they're not it's all about fiscal responsibility! What a bunch of hypocrites. But don't worry, I'm sure the public will get complacent once things get better again, and then they will vote in another Republican, who will do what Republicans do best - shift the burden of government to the poorer classes, get out of the way of corporate greed, and bring on another collapse so they can hand it back over to the Democrats to fix it again.

So, you're saying just because they did it, it is alright for us to do it? It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.

You also don't seem to realize that Clinton's successes were largely a result of the Republican controlled congress.

Again, the efficacy of the Obama plan has nothing to do with this topic. Why do you people have to come in and hijack what could be an interesting discussion about government forays into Web 2.0.

PS posting copious numbers of links is nothing more than an e-penis contest, and could be regarded as spam. It doesn't prove anything about a) your point, and b) your knowledge of the current situation and the required policy response.

I see several people have finally noticed one thing about the WWII recovery and now. During WWII everything was manufactured here and the war was paid for by bonds. With the return of the men from war and pent up spending due to war rationing inflation took off and within 10 years so did a major recession, as the bonds came due. Clinton did not balance the budget in fact he never came close he just raised the debt ceiling to 3 trillion and came under it, wish I could do that. Also Clinton did have two things going for him the census and Y2k 4 trillion dollars was spent worldwide on Y2K. But the economy was dying as he left office so he passed a bill to basically pass the problem to the next president, the lets give anyone a loan, this meant people who were loosing their pants in the Dot com implosion moved their money to real estate and the speculators drove the housing market way beyond reality. President Bush inherited this mess and tried to correct it 2005, but Frank and all said everything is fine. We know the rest of the story. The money that we are spending is feeding the wrong end of the horse we already now banks and companies pocket the money and move overseas if he had waited 2 yrs this would have gone away but no lets spend more money we don't have for foreign goods.

Do you want a real recovery or just this total waste of money? First all American home owners get a 6kw PV set for their home. No rentals, no apartments, and people making 75k or more are excluded. Now tie these into the grid and drive electricity rates way down as it is now cheap. Now part two any company claiming to be based in the US has to manufacture and do its R&D here if not they are excluded from Government contracts. Now for the killer if you move overseas your IP becomes public domain. I keep seeing ideas and patents come in and then produced elsewhere, when we have an abundance well trained academics here. I see IBM firing in Armonk and then opening places in Dubai, China, and India, why are we dealing with them at all we are slitting our own throats. And don't give money to the banks as how can you own bank and loose money?

Im think John McCain is thanking the voter's for NOT voting him president. Who wants this on their plate? It really does not matter what you do or how much money you borrow a deep recession is going to happen and its going to be a pay me now or pay me later situation. I don't think you can just rewrite loans and expect things to be OK if income has been lost or the value of the home has been significantly reduced. The auto makers have had years to realize their shrinking marketshare and did nothing about it. Businesses no matter how big should be allowed to fail. Its a natural clensing of free enterprise. Bad businesses models need to fail. Its causes others to learn and not make the same mistakes. We should not spend large ammounts of tax money we don't have to pay for fledging business models. Let's face it, people that have jobs are maxed out, and people that have lost jobs will have a very hard time finding one even close to their previous wage. Our over all tax base is shrinking yet our borrowing is increasing. This sets up a massive problem for Federal, States, and local governments to come. Nobody wants to address this now but it will come soon enough. Some of it is already happening. Welcome to the Depression 2 folks.

You're being blinded by your ideological preconceptions. Most academic economists agree that a stimulus package was necessary; you linking to a subset of the minority who disagree won't change that. Besides, what is the point of linking to people who agree with you on ideological grounds? Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation "economists" are ideological/fundamentalist by nature. In these times you want pragmatists not ideologues.

What absolute bullshit... It's obvious you've never taken a course in economics.

What do you think finally got the US out of the Great Depression? That's right, the huge amount of money the US government had to spend during World War II.

I would suspect the poster has taken a course in economics. The US was an entirely different economic animal during and after WWII. The upper echelon of the US has since decided to sell out a majority of its manufacturing so that consumers may buy goods for a cheaper price- even artificially low prices if you believe the economists who criticize the chinese currency situation. Unfortunately we can't export lawyers, because that is where the expertise in the US lies today- along with other information expertise fields, most of which can be done anywhere (e.g. computer science in India). The current economic situation is very, very different than any we have seen before. Coupled with the tremendously troublesome trade deficit brought about by off-shoring is the huge personal debt situation that didn't exist 50 years ago. People used to save money to buy things, that rarely happens anymore. These days the government is more worried about the financial sector than the people. What are these financial institutions going to be worth when all they have to invest in is themselves because there are no longer any real companies in the US producing real goods to export? The economy in the coming decade(s) will be very different than anything we have seen before, and if we are to address global warming, we will have to reverse the global trade that is responsible for a large percentage of the increase.

If you have an economist you trust, ask him/her when the US will pay off its debt. The answer is a date, if it comes in the form of hemming-and-hawing or hand-waving then the economist is dodging the question. I have yet to see any economist who will stake his/her reputation on the day that my tax dollars will no longer go to paying interest to the chinese.

All of the above might or might not be true; but I don't see how it has anything to do with the premise that government spending under the current conditions is the only way to stabilize the economy.

BTW, you seem to believe debt is a terrible thing. That's not true under most conditions.

Originally posted by Mastertech:Cutting taxes to help people pay their bills is a legitimate solution, giving people checks for money they never paid in taxes is welfare.

poor people spend government aid immediately and domestically. rich people take the money and hide it offshore so they won't have to pay taxes, or invest it in dodgy securities and then demand more bailouts when all the value disappears.